A synthetic aperture radar calibration transponder at C-band

Abstract

Part of Australia's contribution to the European Space Agency's ERS-1 synthetic aperture radar experiment is the development of an active transponder to assist in the calibration of radar images. The architecture and experimental evaluation of a C-band zero-delay transponder are described in detail. The self-calibration loop of the system has been shown to provide and maintain 60 dB of active gain to an accuracy of 0.1 dB.<>